


The Guest

by LeatherandSaltyBitters



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Asra (The Arcana) Route, Asra x OC, Gen, Hathe, Male Pronouns for Asra (The Arcana), Past Apprentice/Asra (The Arcana), asra - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25654783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeatherandSaltyBitters/pseuds/LeatherandSaltyBitters
Summary: I wanted to write something from the viewpoint of the apprentice before Asra gives up on trying to get their memories back during the three year interlude. It’s a precursor to something specific to my apprentice, Hathe, and what exactly led to Asra choosing to let their memories lie. But I think this is probably vague enough for anyone’s apprentice depending on your own approach to those three years. You can take this as figuratively or as literally as you like.I’m very much of the mindset that the apprentice isn’t reduced to a child-like state and is being taught everything from scratch. But is instead trying to drag back everything they used to know how to do. Amnesia rather than an adult infant. And the frustration and heartbreak it can cause for both parties. @apprenticeofcups said it much better here than I ever could:  https://apprenticeofcups.tumblr.com/post/188499703776/so-i-know-that-mc-came-back-as-a-blank-slate-but
Kudos: 1





	The Guest

I’m not sure if I can bear this much longer.

But what are my options? I don’t think I have any. 

It’s starting to hurt now. The pressure on my chest, the pressure in my chest. Like a overwhelming uncontrollable sob is trapped deep inside of me. It fills my entire ribcage, pushing my lungs aside, making its home there.

I can barely breathe past it anymore. Every breath I try and take comes out as a shudder. 

If I could just … crack my chest open, like somehow I could just let this … thing just slip out quietly into the night … Is that what it wants? To be let loose? Could I just sink my nails into my flesh and open my chest like a locket … ?

But he cut my nails back. I think it’s for my own safety. They were long when I woke up. But he must have thought I’ll hurt myself accidentally with them. I … know he’s right. My fists are clenched tight, knuckles white. I’ve broken the skin without them as it is. 

But it doesn’t feel right. Having them this short, it makes my fingers itch. It exacerbates the frustration. I think that’s what this thing locked in my chest is. Frustration. Frustration that I’m stuck like this. Frustration that every step forward is a tumble backwards.

There building inside me, pushing everything else out. Making room for itself. It must have already got into my guts. My stomach feels light there’s a dead weight in it. I clench and unclench my fingers against my palms, letting them scrape against my palms. They itch. I start to push my nails down with my thumbs to the point where I flinch with each twitch. I hate this.

It’s growing. It’s pushing up my throat now. I keep forgetting how to swallow every time I try. I keep trying to push it back down. It feels like I’m going to be sick but there’s nothing there, of course. No bile, not even saliva. Just this … feeling. 

It’s crept up into my head now, behind my eyes. My head throbs. It feels like it’s going to push past my left eye. Is it planning its own escape route?

I just want to scream. We’re trapped in this body together. It’s in here with me. And there’s not enough room. We’re tripping over each other in here. It wants out. Or it wants me out.

Hot tears prick my eyes, filling my vision until the walls are just a swirling, blurred mass of colour. Like a watercolour left in the rain, the colours bleed into each other. No details are discernible.

They start to burn and I keep trying to rub my eyes. But it just makes them sting even more. I close my eyes and the throbbing worsens. I can’t win.

Let me out. If one of us has to leave, then let me out. 

My head feels like it’s going to explode. Slowly I draw my hands back over my eyes, letting them curl under my brow bone as if to pluck my eyes out of the sockets myself. Let me help you. I’ll do it for you. I can feel a scream building, forcing its way past that feeling. It comes out as a ragged whimper from behind clenched teeth. I can’t bear it. 

I try to practice the techniques he taught me when I felt overwhelmed. Breathing deep and slow. But each breath shudders and shivers as it escapes my lips. Every one seems shallow, barely enough to fill my lungs, what little left of them there is. 

So I try not to think about it. It try not to let it overwhelm me. I try not to think about how I’m trapped in this. And how it’s trapped in here with me. For a moment, it almost works.

My chest feels full, my head still pulses. My eyes stay closed because they’re still stinging. But for a moment I feel nothing. I see nothing. 

Then I see him. My eyes are still closed. I know he’s not here. He’s downstairs slumped over the table, asleep. He’s been poring over tomes all night. I had been there. I’m running through another all too familiar scene in behind my closed lids. A repeat of earlier. I wish I could help him. But it’s all beyond me. I can’t … make any sense of it. It’s so familiar yet utterly foreign. I almost wish I didn’t recognise it. It’s worse having this echo. This constant deja vu. So I give up. I walk away. He tries to hold my hand, his violet eyes looking up into mine imploringly. I think he wants me to stay even though he knows I can’t help him. But it hurts. It makes this weight inside me even worse. Sometimes it threatens to split my skull into pieces through white-hot searing light. Pushing through every crack and seam of my skull. So I lash out. I scream at him. No words, just rage. And he just takes it. I’ve never struck him. For that I’m thankful. The impulse is always to implode. Never to explode. Not matter how had it gets I never want to hurt him. Perhaps just keep him away. But I sometimes strike myself, like it will somehow jumpstart … something. Like something will click through sheer force. But that seems to hurt him just as much as if I struck him instead. 

He’ll hold my wrists and try to get me to stop. His voice will be as soft as always. But it cracks. It always does. He’s trying to placate me. Reassure me. But he’s finding it so hard. And I feel so guilty. He’s almost pleading. But he just about manages to keep control. He’s going to cry but … he’s trying to blink the tears away. At least until I’m gone. He lets me go upstairs. I don’t want to think about how his expression will change when he thinks I’m out of sight. How that gentle, encouraging smile will immediately crack and he’ll look so hopeless. I’ve watched it happen from the doorway. 

Sometimes I forget his name.

He understands. There was a time not so long ago when I wouldn’t have recognised my own name. He’s the only one who ever says it to me. So he understands. But I see his face fall a little. If I could I’d apologise until I was blue in the face. I’d beg for his forgiveness. But the words don’t come easy and my body won’t let me. So we look at each other in silence, he waits and if his name still doesn’t come, he tries to distract me with a story from our past or some form of magic he claims I was once knew. 

But that’s almost worse. I almost want him to grab me by the shoulders and have him scream his name into my face until it sinks in. His name is written in my mind like a rain sodden note. The ink has run, the paper is torn. But if I concentrate I can see the vague outline of the letters. If I try, I can just about see it. But it hurts to try. So sometimes I don’t try at all. 

I don’t know why he puts himself through this, day after day. Why does he stay? I always feel that agonising sense of deja vu most keenly when I’m with him. He’s a part of me somehow but I don’t know to what extent. Is he my friend? Or just a well-meaning stranger? No … sometimes he talks of a past we once shared but … the details escape me. Even as he talks about it, every word falls limply to the floor. Anything that manages to crawl into my ear to make a home ends up hurting me, like it’s burrowing into my skull. Every memory hurts. Every attempt is agony. I don’t want to try anymore.

It overwhelms him sometimes. He tries not to let it show. He keeps me close, but not too close. Sometimes he’ll sleep near the end of the bed. I’ll shift and my foot might tap his shoulder or his back. He contorts himself into the strangest shapes on the covers just to be close, but not too close. To keep me safe but not suffocate me. His sleep is just as restless as mine. I wonder if he has the same nightmares. I can’t even comfort him. I don’t remember the words and when I do, I can’t remember in what tone to use them. All I can tell is when I’m doing it right or wrong. But not how to make it better. 

I’m not learning it from scratch. He’s not my keeper or my carer. He’s trying to find me under … all this. I know it’s all there. But I’m muffled. I feel like like I’ve been buried alive. I’m clawing up through the earth and I can his voice. He’s digging through the sand and soil to get to me, calling my name. And then I’ll catch a shaft of light, hear his voice particularly clearly. That’s what it feel like when I remember something. A fragment of a memory will come back. For a moment, my muscle memory will kick in and something will feel truly familiar to me. My hands will work automatically and then next thing I know, I’m actually doing something. But then some days it’ll be like it never happened. Like we both lost the old me, slipped through both of our fingers. Back into the soil and the … ash? Even worse is when the memory unlocks something else, a chain reaction of tiny little explosions as another memory unfurls and then another. Then searing pain, sheer agony. And then suddenly it’s all gone. Like it never happened. I don’t always remember what it is I even discovered. There is no reward at the end.

Asra, do you miss me like I do?

Should I give up? It’s so tempting. He could finally rest. He seems exhausted. We’re both trying to gather of pieces of the puzzle, trying to keep hold of something to make some kind of picture we can make sense of. But every setback sweeps the pieces off the table and we’re only left with one or two pieces and a whole load of nothing. Maybe we should just let them all hit the floor next time. 

I feel selfish for wanting to give up too. He’s giving up so much time, so much of his life for me. He takes every setback almost more personally than me. Every victory stirs him into action. He gets encouraged, he tries a little more until I can’t bear it. A particularly good day might cause him to lose himself. He’ll pull me into a hug, I’ll feel his breath on my neck, his fluffy white curls tickling my cheek and he’ll tell me how proud he is of me. I want him to be proud of me.

I have these debates every night. About whether to give up or not. What would hurt him less. What would hurt me less. I still don’t know what’s worse.

He must have sensed me thinking of him. He’s moved the divider aside and is crouched near me beside the bed. He asks how I am and I reluctantly open my reddened eyes. I try and sit up a little. He takes my hands and asks me whether I’m okay, rubbing one of my thumbs with his. I nod and feign tiredness. I’m just tired. A headache. I’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. 

He looks at me for a long time and then, climbing onto the bed just a fraction and moves forward to pull me into a hug. I’m not okay. He knows.

I let him hold me as I look over his shoulder to the kitchen past the divider. I lock eyes with the old woman under the table. She’s scrunched up and folded up on top of herself like a discarded toy. Her sclera stained blood red, she seldom blinks. A red beetle crawls across her face. I didn’t realise she was visiting me again tonight.

He doesn’t know.


End file.
